Restaurateurs are appealing to parliamentarians to ease regulations in the new anti-smoking legislation. They claim that a complete ban on smoking in restaurants, pubs and clubs will cause many to go bankrupt.

Joanna Mucha, a Civic Platform (PO) member of the Health Commission has said the bill proposing a complete ban on smoking in public places is very unlikely to be accepted in its current form. The reason is that the proposed laws hurt the interests of restaurateurs, as well as the owners of pubs and clubs. (PO to water down anti-smoking bill, Source: Polska - The Times, The Warsaw Business Journal, 2/11/2010.)

The restaurant owners have now presented the findings of a study of 600 restaurants by TNS OBOP, where 54 percent of respondents believed the number of customers will drop because of a smoking ban. Only 3 percent thought the number would increase.

According to Artur Jasiński, president of the Cafe Club chain, one of his cafes that was forced to impose a smoking ban by the mall where it was located, saw the number of customers fall by 28 percent within three years, and became uneconomical.